Archiving throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas: Bosque del Apache NWR, NM 10.2.12-10.6.12

More than 130,000 birds spend the winter at Bosque. The crew there works very hard to insure that the 57,000 acre refuge is prepared for their arrival by managing how the water is allocated and channeled into the various marshes. They also grow plants that will provide seeds and food for the birds. They are guaranteed to have water from the Rio Grande, based on plans and agreements with farmers upstream who close their water gates at the end of the summer to allow for water to flow downstream to Bosque in time for the winter migration.

There are numerous places throughout the refuge where visitors can get a "birds-eye" view of its natural beauty.

Although this must look like one giant vacation, we also did quite a lot of work during our time at Bosque. We scanned over 40 different reports that will be uploaded to a database (ServCat) for the Fish and Wildlife Dept. This means that these documents will be available for all staff to view and use, and ultimately these docs will also be available to the public online.

Most of these were annual reports or "narratives" which provide an overview of the important events and happenings at the refuge during the year, quarter, or whatever period of time the report covered. There were also docs that provided a history of annual bird counts and historical data for other wildlife that call the refuge home (mountain lions, prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, various spiders, raptors, etc). It was fascinating to learn more about this special place and we are glad that our work can make part of its history available to more people.

This is a view of the visitor's center, offices and residences from the two-lane road that connects Bosque to the rest of the world.

Just 8 miles from the refuge is the Buckhorn - home of the best green chile cheeseburger in southern NM! We have acquired a real taste for the NM green chiles, which are found everywhere. We even ate a green chile cheeseburger at McDonald's!

Oliver enjoyed the sauna at the refuge almost every night we were there.

We were so excited to spot these two coyotes at dusk - such a pretty time of day at the refuge.

We were a little ahead of the arrival of the birds, but did enjoy seeing hundreds of the early landers.

We would recommend southern NM as a great place for a winter vacation: Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Carlsbad National Park, White Sands National Monument, Bosque del Apache NWR, The Very Large Array - are just a few super-cool places to visit all within 3-4 hours of one another.